Preparing for Gmail's Next Massive Data Loss

This weekend, Google's email cloud suffered a severe thunderstorm. Roughly 150,000 Gmail users found all of their data -- their emails, their chat logs, their contacts, their attachments, everything -- missing. Vanished. Gone. Once again, the convenience of having your data stored online and accessible from a wide variety of devices is rendered moot by a massive glitch.

Currently, Google is working to restore the data lost in the error and has set up an Apps Status Dashboard to log any updates as they happen.

The last report before the repetitive message: "Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change."

Although the company is ensuring a full recovery of data, this glitch underscores the necessity of email backups should you store your content online. Whether using Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or work servers, everyone should have locally stored backups.